Small, multi-function kitchen appliances have long been available to the home food preparer and cook. A typical appliance may include one or more attachments which can be added to a single basic stand unit to permit the performance of several food preparation functions. One example of such an appliance, disclosed by Strauss in U.S. Pat. No. 2,012,486, is a stationary stand mixer of the type having a pair of downwardly directed beaters which can be either converted to a portable hand mixer or utilized in its stationary condition to drive a juice extractor or other attachment. This appliance includes a power unit which may be drivingly coupled to a pair of beater sockets or to a supplemental power take-off for driving a juicer or other attachment which must be mounted on the top of the power unit.
Burton discloses a multi-function rotary appliance in U.S. Pat. No. 2,762,613 which provides a stand to support a power unit which may be employed to drive a pair of mixer beaters and to operate a variety of rotary attachments, including a blender, liquifier, ice cream freezer, coffee mill, can opener, knife grinder, meat commutator or the like. However, appliances such as those described by Burton are bulky and cumbersome and do not present a streamlined, aesthetically pleasing appearance and require considerable storage space for the stand and attachments. In addition, these devices tend to be significantly less stable than the single purpose equivalent appliance.
It is also known, as taught by Gerber et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 2,687,284, to create a convertible mixer combination, including a portable hand-held mixer, utilizing a conversion unit into which is built a take-off coupling drive arrangement designed for plug-in coupling at one end with a supplemental power take-off socket on the power unit of the portable mixer portion. The opposite end of this take-off coupling drive arrangement is drivingly coupled to an auxiliary rotary appliance attachment, such as a juicer or blender, mounted on the conversion unit. While such an arrangement may enable the conversion of a portable hand-held mixer into another form of rotary appliance that is more stable than convertible mixer combinations such as those taught by Strauss or Burton, the Gerber et al. converted mixer combination still is somewhat patchwork in appearance and is only suitable for converting the mixer into appliances which utilize a bottom-mounted agitator, such as a juicer or blender.
Mixers of the type with an electric drive motor which projects over a base from the top of a standard and which supports and drives a depending stirrer shaft for mixing beverages in an elongated cylindrical container are extremely well known mixing appliances. U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,639 to Valbona et al. describes such a mixer.
However, despite the conventionality of the Valbona et al. type of drink mixer and the known practice of converting portable hand-held mixers into other rotary appliances, it has, heretofore, been unknown to convert a portable hand-held mixer into a drink mixer of the depending stirrer shaft type, and no conversion unit for accomplishing this result has been proposed by the prior art.